International Refugee Agency Created by U.N. Expected to Begin Work by January

June 24, 1946

New York (Jun. 23)

The new International Refugee Organization established this week by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations is expected to begin functioning about Jan. 1, it is learned here.

At a session on Friday lasting until midnight, the Council adopted the basic outlines of the new agency. Additional details will be filled in at the next meeting of the Council in August. The entire project will then be placed before the U.N. General Assembly, which will open here on Sept. 3.

The most important features of the IRO contained in the draft approved on Friday are:

The members of the organization will be all the member states of the United Nations. The two directing bodies will be a General Council composed of all the members and an executive committee of nine members elected for two-year terms.

The chief executive officer will be the Director-General, who will be responsible to the General Council through the executive committee.

A finance committee was established in order to prepare provisional administrative and operational budgets for the IRO’s first year of operations.

In view of the urgent necessity of making adequate preparations for the advent of the new organization, the Economic and Social Council recommended that U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie take such steps as may be appropriate to plan, in consultation with UNRRA and the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, the initiation of work by the IRO.